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Jonathan Dunkley for U.S. Congress, 2nd District

I am running for Congress because we don’t have representation in Washington that reflects the values and beliefs of the people who live in our district, we have representatives who want to divide our country, our state, and our congressional district between the “haves” and “have nots”. It’s political magic, centered on an illusion that the people in charge care about you and me while in reality they only care about their financial bottom line.

As a graduate of Philander Smith and the Clinton School for Public Service, I took my experience growing up and the challenges I had faced and applied them to the work that I did at the Boys and Girls Club, working with kids exiting the foster care environment, 10 years of service working in Belize with college students from around the country, and mentoring youth through my non-profit in central Arkansas. We tell people to pull themselves up by their bootstraps but what do we do to help them if they can’t afford to buy boots? My non-profit teaches students how to save to afford the boots and why it is necessary to buy them.

Even with the service work that I have done for more than 10 years my daughter challenged me by asking what I was doing to make the world a better place. When I explained to her what I do she said, “It isn’t enough Dad, Trump is our President!” Sending me to Washington will give the people of the 2nd Congressional District and the people of Arkansas something to be proud of.

We need to create a patient-centered health care system for all people. I will work toward creating a single payer or single provider system like Medicare for All that is specific to the American system.

I will work for an economic system that works for all people. I will focus on creating tax makers not tax takers so that our economic system is meeting the needs of all people. We spend more time recruiting businesses to come into our communities than we spend training people who are already here to be entrepreneurs. I will focus on making education a “school to work” pipeline by focusing real skill development, not just teaching to test. At the same time, I recognize that we need to raise the floor of our current federal minimum wage to $15 and hour and I will support federal legislation that accomplishes that. It still would not be a living wage but we would help create a more sustainable economic system because we would be putting more money into the economy by giving more income to those who spend their money.

I will work to develop a debt-free college system that doesn’t saddle graduates with an insurmountable debt. Graduates these days are leaving college with more debt than our parents had after they purchased their first home, and employers are not recognizing their accomplishments by offering a fair wage that allows them to pay off their debts without struggling.

These are very real issues that affect everyone. For too long we have been focusing on issues that don’t directly impact the lives of voters, that has to change. The job of Congress is to help people and make sure the country is prepared for the future by focusing on the domestic needs, that is why I want to replace our current Congressman.